2021-22 End of Year Assessment --Little Princess

 

Little Princess turned 12 years old at the start of our school year.  She needed a lot of support that she didn't get, and between the two of us, we could be crushed under guilt for how the school year went.

We started the year with high hopes after having worked for hours together to find books and create plans that she would feel invested in.  We were both so excited.

Life happened.

I couldn't give her support.

She thought she should be functioning on her own--able to solve all of the problems herself.

She couldn't.

If she did dare to ask for help, she felt guilty, and if I didn't explain things exactly right the first time, she'd get angry at herself for taking up my time, and she'd take it out on me, and we'd both have to walk away to calm down with no problems solved.

I know I tried to reach out, but she stuffed her feelings down because she didn't want to be a burden.

I'd be frustrated because she wouldn't talk.

She wouldn't talk because I was frustrated.

It was such a mess.

So much planned stuff didn't get done.

BUT . . .

She did so much amazing studying anyway!!!

Home Economics:

Little Princess baked and decorated beautiful cakes, cupcakes, and cookies.  She watched YouTube videos; she read library books; she asked questions of me; she experimented, failed, succeeded, and is becoming amazing.  Her most recent baking accomplishment as of this writing is 2 dozen lemon strawberry cupcakes with lemon curd filling, frosted with homemade buttercream, and topped with homemade candied lemon and sugared strawberries.  

These delicious confections are usually gluten- and dairy-free, so that they are safe for all of our family members to enjoy.

Foreign Languages:

Little Princess loves studying languages.  The Chinese texts and workbooks that I purchased for her, after much research and with her approval, proved to be too challenging to work with on her own.  She did, however, review her old Tuttle flashcards and work at least 100 days on Mandarin Chinese with Duolingo.

She studied Portuguese on Duolingo for at least 100 days, and she also began experimenting with Russian--having accrued 25 days of practice on Duolingo so far.

History:

Little Princess completed a study in Ancient World History by listening to the 15 books and novels I read aloud, starting with The Three Brothers of Ur.

Language Arts:

Lightning Literature 7 was her chosen course of study.  She completed 75% of the coursework, and she plans to read the remaining novel (All Creatures Great and Small) on her own.  Little Princess is an excellent reader, an enthusiastic critical thinker, and a coherent writer.  

Math:

This best subject for Little Princess was a decided fail this year.  She helped me choose her textbook, and she was so excited to use it.  However, it turned out to be a book that needed a teacher to go with it, and she didn't have that because I was wrapped up in keeping everyone alive and safe.  She thought she should be able to do it on her own; she couldn't do it on her own; she felt guilty; she ignored it; she picked it up and tried again, but she couldn't do it on her own . . . repeat.

This summer I signed her up for Khan Academy pre-algebra, pre-geometry, beginning algebra, and beginning geometry.  Doing math on the computer with clearly outlined lessons and tokens/badges/awards for incentives has been a perfect fit.  She's done more math in the month of July than she did all school year.  She feels good about herself.  She feels independent.  She's making huge strides in a subject that is dear to her heart.  Win-win-win.

Science:

She is so self-motivated to study science!  Little Princess focused on chemistry, astronomy, and biographies of great inventors.  She read dozens of books, did dozens of experiments, kept journals, and made observations with both her naked eye and our telescope.  I cannot possibly list all of the work she did, but a partial list of books follows:

   MEL Science kits--7 chemistry boxes

   Tiner History of Chemistry

   Elemental Journal

   Adventures with Atoms and Molecules

   Properties of Matter (God's Design for Science)

   Elements by Dan Green

   The Elements by Theodore Gray

   Basher Science--The Periodic Table

   Night Sky with the Naked Eye

   The Universe Today

   Ultimate Guide to Viewing the Cosmos

   50 Things to See with a Small Telescope

   The Search for Life on Mars

   Scott Kelly--Astronaut

   Katherine Johnson; My Remarkable Journey

   Girl Genius

   NASA.gov

   50 Women Who Defied the Laws of Math and Science

   NASA Illustrated History

   Women in . . . series by Rachel Ignotofsky

Little Princess usually has at least a dozen science books checked out from the library at any given time, so I figure she's read an additional 60 books that I don't have recorded anywhere . . . and that doesn't count the fiction and literature books that she's read on her own, too.

On top of all of that, Little Princess also worked in our home daycare, and she led the music and math portions of our preschool hours.  

We had quite the talk about how much she DID get done this year.  I'm totally impressed with my 12-year-old girl, and I'm doing my best to help her understand that!